TIRANA, Albania (AP) — The Albanian Parliament on Friday legalized cannabis for medical purposes in a country once known as a European crossroads for marijuana trafficking.<\/p>\n
The Parliament voted 69-23 to allow limited and controlled growth of cannabis plants, a move harshly contested by the opposition.<\/p>\n
It was not clear how the medical cannabis will be regulated. The government believes that allowing limited production of cannabis can boost tax revenue.<\/p>\n
Marijuana growing flourished in Albania in the past as drug traffickers exploited a lack of strong governance in the post-Communist country.<\/p>\n
After coming to power in 2013, the left-wing Socialist Party government of Prime Minister Edi Rama set destroying cannabis plants as a main target.<\/p>\n
Over the next two years it destroyed millions of cannabis plants with an estimated market value of 7 billion euros ($8.5 billion), more than two-thirds of the country’s annual gross domestic product at that time.<\/p>\n
In 2014, a police officer was fatally shot during a crackdown on a southern village using armored personnel carriers. Police came under automatic weapon and rocket fire from drug growers.<\/p>\n
Albania is still a main route for trafficking hard drugs. Police still crack down on isolated cases of cannabis growing, but much less often than a decade ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TIRANA, Albania (AP) — The Albanian Parliament on Friday legalized cannabis for medical purposes in a country once known as a European crossroads for marijuana trafficking. The Parliament voted 69-23 to allow limited and controlled growth of cannabis plants, a move harshly contested by the opposition. It was not clear how the medical cannabis will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"guid":"","source":"The Associated Press","byline":"The Associated Press","published":"2023-07-21T07:58:26","updated":"2023-07-22T22:00:00","_infotelid":"IT99535","_prepressid":"99535","_multisite_post_sync":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[379,2,391,381],"tags":[],"region":[309,310,311,312],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured3","category-in420","category-nonit","category-topnews","region-kamloops","region-kelowna","region-penticton","region-vernon"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":7}},"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/in420\/news\/855\/albanian-parliament-legalizes-medical-cannabis-despite-harsh-opposition-2\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Albanian Parliament legalizes medical cannabis despite harsh opposition","url":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/in420\/news\/855\/albanian-parliament-legalizes-medical-cannabis-despite-harsh-opposition-2\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/infonews.ca\/in420\/news\/855\/albanian-parliament-legalizes-medical-cannabis-despite-harsh-opposition-2\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/in420\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/MediaItemID50271-2754.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/infonews.ca\/in420\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/MediaItemID50271-2754.jpg"},"articleSection":"featured3","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Howard Alexander"}],"creator":["Howard Alexander"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"iN420","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2023-07-21T14:58:26Z","datePublished":"2023-07-21T14:58:26Z","dateModified":"2023-07-23T05:00:00Z"},"rendered":"